I'll Be Seeing You (24 page)

October 3, 1944

IOWA CITY, IOWA

Dear Glory,

Oh, hon. This is unexpected. I didn’t think you’d be the one jostling for position
in your own home. I don’t mean that as a slight—it’s just that this particular scenario
never entered my mind. I thought for sure those two would give each other a wide berth.

I’ve been sitting cross-legged in front of my garden for the past half hour, trying
to put myself in Robert’s place. The only conclusion I can come to is this—Levi is
the
easy
one to deal with. You, on the other hand...

You’re not the woman he left, Glory. I guess none of us are the same people we were
before this war started, but even if Hitler had never stepped foot in Poland, over
the years you’d show Robert aspects of your personality he’d never thought were there.
We’re all so multifaceted, and it’s impossible to see all the sides at once.

I suppose some people would say he left a girl and came back to a woman, but I think
that’s oversimplifying things. You were a woman a year and a half ago, just a
different
kind of woman.

Robert needs to figure out this new Glory. I’ve got to say, being sassy and petulant
isn’t going to help; however, he’s going to have to learn to accept all your emotions,
as you’re freer now, and they rise to the surface more easily.

And you’re going to need to accept Robert’s quirks. He may move quickly in that chair,
but acclimating to this new lifestyle will take time.

I’m not an expert, but I believe marriage is about loving someone enough to accept
whatever comes, be it pleasant or unpleasant without a thought of giving up. Sal taught
me that.

Oh, Glory, I wish I could tell you these things with my arm around your shoulders
and my head leaning against yours. The sun is brilliant this afternoon. And unlike
the cement patio, the earth miraculously still holds the warmth of summer—I can feel
it through the denim of my overalls. I’ve got my back against the wheelbarrow, and
my paper is supported by some magazines Roylene left behind. On the back of one some
Hollywood type is telling me to wear Victory Red lipstick to keep our troops safe.
If only it was that simple.

And yes, you read that right. Roylene is gone.

Charlie and I brought her to Cedar Falls last Thursday. We acted like two worried
parents dropping their youngest off at sleepaway camp. Charlie kept asking her if
she needed anything, and I think if she’d requested a samurai sword he would have
hopped on a plane and fought General Tojo for one.

Roylene was quiet and contemplative when we arrived—I’m sure she was thinking about
Little Sal (we thought it best he stay in Iowa City with Irene, after much teary back
and forth). She jammed her fingers in her mouth, a habit I thought she’d long since
given up.

The camp was an impressive sight to behold. It’s located on the stately grounds of
the Iowa State Teachers College, and I couldn’t help but think, if this were another
life, we’d be dropping Roylene off in the students’ dormitory. But this is the life
she’s been given, I told myself, and I can only help her live it. I slipped my arm
around her shoulders as we took in her new home. Lines of girls dressed smartly in
navy blue, sharply tailored suits marched by where we stood. Roylene’s eyes were glued
to a gal holding the flag in front—she stood nearly six feet tall and held her figure
as fine and elegant as the Statue of Liberty.

“We best get you checked in,” Charlie said, and picked up her small suitcase.

“I can’t,” Roylene whispered, and abruptly turned on her heel and started walking,
away from us and away from the camp.

I turned to follow, but Charlie stopped me cold. “Give her some thinking time,” he
said, and we wandered the campus for ten minutes or so, until I was just about ready
to jump out of my skin.

We found her sitting on the hood of Charlie’s car, shoes kicked off, her eyes puffy
and red. “What am I doin’?” she moaned when we approached.

I wasn’t sure I had a good enough answer for her. While I stood there with my mouth
hanging open in the breeze, Charlie scooted up next to her and calmly said, “Why’d
you go and sign up?”

“I come from nothin’,” Roylene said. “Worse than that, when you really look at it.”
She stopped, took a breath. “Did you ever catch a glimpse of what you could be, if
you really tried at life? The woman at the enlistment office gave me a peek. This
war is terrible, she said, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t give us some opportunities.
I could find a place for myself serving my country. Little Sal could always have something
to be proud of, instead of feeling like he had to make up for where I came from. I
just don’t know if I can leave him. Does that make any sense at all?”

Charlie sighed and asked if he could tell her a story. Then he told a tale I’d been
waiting to hear for a long time. It came out in a torrent—his jailbird father, alcoholic
mother, juvenile delinquency. He grew up in the back of a pool hall, was arrested
for the first time at twelve years old when his father talked him into driving a getaway
car after he’d robbed a drugstore.

“I got plenty to be ashamed of, and I’ve spent the past few years trying to catch
my own glimpse of what I can be,” Charlie said after he’d finished. “I wanted the
war to help me get there, to make me whole. That didn’t play out, but it might for
you. I don’t have a child, but if I did, I’d do everything I could to make sure I
could look him in the eye when he asked what kind of man I was. Now, you got nothing
to be ashamed of besides being born to a real SOB, but life is long, and if you feel
you’ll look back on this experience and see it’s made yours a better one, then you
need to consider it.”

I wanted to object. Roylene was already whole in my book. But some kind of understanding
passed between the two of them, something outside of my comprehension, so I didn’t
say a word. After a moment, Roylene slid off the car and walked up to me. “I need
to do this, for Little Sal and Toby...and me,” she said, her eyes full of conviction.
“I don’t take it lightly, and I know I’m taking a risk. I need your permission for
leaving, though, or it won’t feel right. I trust your opinion more than any other,
Mrs. Vincenzo. Do you think I should go?”

Every part of me wanted to scoop her up and take her back to Iowa City, to her son
and the life I wanted her to live. She gazed at me expectantly, her eyes clouding
up a bit when she guessed my answer.

“Every day I’ll tell Little Sal about his brave mommy and daddy,” I said, and pulled
her trembling body close. “It’s only a year, hon. You go. Jump off some cliffs for
both of us.”

I kissed her forehead and promised to send weekly updates of Little Sal’s progress.
And then I let her go. It’s the third time I’ve given someone to this war and, oh,
Glory, in some ways, it was the hardest.

On the way home, Charlie pulled over onto an embankment about three miles past Waterloo.

“Everything I told her was true,” he said, cutting the engine. “There’s more to the
story. I want you to hear it, is that all right?”

The next decade after the drugstore robbery was one of petty (and not-so-petty) thefts
and consistent arrests. He did some adult time in the Oklahoma State Pen. That’s what
doomed him to 4-F status. “I thought if I could serve,” he admitted, “I could make
up for what I’d done.”

Then Charlie went on, from the sordid mess of his mother’s death to his father’s final
incarceration, to the guilt and pain and regret that tug at his pant leg like the
unhappy, attention-starved child he was.

Given his bravery, I’m not proud of what happened next. As he talked, mean thoughts
zipped through my head like bolts of lightning. Why was Charlie sitting next to me
and not Sal? Why is my husband—a man who read Shakespeare and never harmed a fly—decomposing
under a mound of Italian soil while this man wears shiny shoes and drinks hooch and
plays Monopoly at my dining room table?

Charlie must have sensed something. He dropped forward, gluing his forehead to the
steering wheel, arms slack at his sides. The droop of his shoulders announced his
defeat.

His total immobility prompted me to act. I gently pushed him upright. I combed through
his tangled hair, wiped the sweat from his brow, curled his fingers over the wheel.
I turned the radio on to something low and melodic. “You are a respectable man out
for a Sunday drive,” I said. “I believe it, so you should start believing it, too.”

“Do you?” he whispered. “Do you really believe it?”

I did. It was a side of him I had seen, and one I knew to be true. “I do,” I said,
and we drove off into the heart of Iowa, two people under the wide expanse of cloudless
sky.

This is the thing, Glory—sometimes it takes so long to see the best sides of a person.
I’m not certain Robert has seen all you have to offer. I don’t even know if
you’re
aware of your many attributes. They lie in wait, like a tower of brightly wrapped
gifts hidden in a cedar closet. When the door finally opens you have to be certain
they won’t come tumbling out, overwhelming him.

Anna has the rare talent of seeing more than most. Levi, too, in his own way. Now
it’s time for Robert to have his chance. Let him discover you, and you him. Take the
time you both deserve.

Good luck, my friend.

Love,

Rita

October 13, 1944

ROCKPORT, MASSACHUSETTS

Dear Mother,

It’s been five years since we said our last goodbye. Do you remember that October?
The Indian summer stayed and stayed. I felt that somehow, if it lingered...so would
you. How O. Henry of me. Sophomoric, you’d probably say.

I’m writing this letter because I couldn’t find you when I went home. I felt sure
I’d see your ghost. To be honest, I’ve been a little mad that you haven’t haunted
me. I suppose you and Father are dancing at some infinity ball.

I’ve taken to writing letters, you see. I’ve made a friend through paper and pens
and envelopes and postage. A true friend. Not like the girls at school or the silly
geese you dressed me up to play with as a child.

Her name is Rita and she lives in Iowa City, Iowa. Her husband just died in the war
last spring. He was wonderful even though I didn’t know him.

Are you engulfed up there, with all these spirits coming through? Or do you have box
seats?

Anyway, I’ve learned a lot through writing things down. So I figured I’d let you go
this way.

I’m letting go of the ache for you. The desire that wasn’t filled even when you were
here on earth. I’m letting go of the idea that I can still please or displease you.
I’m letting go of the horrible fear that I’ll turn into you someday. And also letting
go of the fear that I won’t.

When I came home I wanted to confess all my sins. I needed you to tell me what to
do. You see, I love two men. I love Levi. I love him very much. And to make everything
more complicated, Robert loves him, too.

Every day I worry about losing one or the other (or both!) of them. I wake up with
an ache that won’t go away. It throbs inside of me all day long.

I can’t wait until summer comes around the bend again. I’ll be able to run down to
the cove and dive into the deep waters there. Somehow I think those icy waters will
calm this heart that is on fire. You liked the cove, didn’t you, Mother? Or have I
made that up in my mind?

I’m thinking so much of you lately. Of you and Father both. The love you had together.
Perhaps that’s what I’ve been looking for. That combination of fiery passion as well
as stable commitment. Maybe you two were the lucky ones. I suppose the rest of us
need to pick one or the other and then try our best to create the other portion of
that amazing equation as we live our lives. Yes, that seems to be it, doesn’t it?
Wake in the stability of a proven, time-tested love and then create the passion that
can exist inside of it.

Look. See what you’ve done now? You’re not even here walking on this earth and you’ve
helped me make my decision.

I can still see you, the way you looked at me when I came home from the Sadie Hawkins
dance. You were sitting in that red velvet wing chair wearing your glorious taffeta
night robe and reading.

“Who did you choose?” you asked without looking up.

“Robert,” I said, and sat on the ground leaning my head against your knee.

You didn’t say anything else, but you did the most incredible thing. You let your
hand find my hair. And then you stroked my head. Do you remember? It was the most
affectionate you’d been with me in years.

Would you stroke my head now, Mother? Now that I’ve made this decision? I’ll dream
that you would. I’ll dream your soft hands are all around me.

I love you, Mother.

All best to you in heaven,

Gloria

[Letter stuffed into the side pocket of Glory’s jewelry box.]

October 16, 1944

ROCKPORT, MASSACHUSETTS

Dear Rita,

Has the world ever been so beautiful and terrifying as it is right now? I never thought
I was a person who was afraid of much. But boy, I’m scared.

Your letter arrived not a moment too soon (as they always seem to do!) Just when I
was beginning to doubt that I could maintain this entire farce. And that’s what it
started to feel like, a farce. Shakespearean (so Sal would have loved a retelling
of the story) and forced. Every morning I felt I pasted a lipstick smile across my
lips and hoped the day would rush by. Afraid to lock eyes with Levi, whose longing
seeps from him. Or even look too hard at Robert, whose eyes hold the same longing.
Like the other night when I was clearing the dinner dishes and Robert came in to help
me. Levi grabbed the dish from him.

“I’ve got it,” said Robert, holding firm to the plate.

“Let me,” said Levi, not letting go either.

They both pulled at it and then it fell to the floor. Crashed into a million pieces.
Then they both just stared at me. I’m so exhausted by all the tension. Something has
got to be done.

Or Robbie, who needs so much, and Corrine, whose little life has been turned upside
down more than any of ours, I guess.

So many sets of eyes pleading for me to be more than I am. Frankly, I’m exhausted.
And then? Then I get your letter.

I was walking back from a glorious outdoor rally. I’d just made a speech about “Maintaining
Our Autonomy When the War Is Over” (the irony of this was not lost on me, but I was
persuasive, anyway). We were on the green, near the beach, but I’d decided to take
the long way home. So I walked through town.

It’s lovely here when the tourists leave. Don’t get me wrong, I love the jumble of
new people during the late spring and summer months. They give this place a newness
that it needs. But when they empty out, it’s like the sea at low tide. An acquired
taste. And yet...a treasure trove of tide pools and deep-sea shells. And the water
is always so peaceful even if it’s laden with seaweed.

Anyway, I was walking through town and Sam comes running out of the post office waving
a letter. He gave it to me and then held my hand. “Someday you’ll have to tell me
all about these letters, Mrs. Whitehall,” he said. “I get almost as excited as you
do when they come in and I don’t even know why!” Then he went back into the post office.

I liked that. Feeling like our friendship has gone beyond us. It is one of the only
good feelings I have these days. Can you tell I’m trying to skirt around an issue
here? Because I am. My words fail me here almost as much as they did the very first
time I tried to write to you.

It happened. All of it happened. And now? Now I’m lost. Here goes, the whole shebang
of it.

When he first got home, Robert was doing exceptionally well. But as the elation of
homecoming began wearing off, reality sunk in. He needs help to bathe, Rita. And help
to dress. He tries, but falls. His upper arms are so strong...but I think there’s
a part of his brain that assumes his legs will work. So he tries to make them move,
and when they don’t...he finds himself on the floor. He won’t let me see him like
that, so he yells and grabs for the bottoms of doors, trying to slam them shut. To
close me out.

It was the sneaking out of bed at night that was the worst. And it led to all the
trouble. I’d lie there and pretend to stay asleep. Pretend I couldn’t hear him struggle
from the bed to the chair. I told myself I pretended because I wanted him to have
that little bit of grace. Truth is, I knew what could happen in the dark night, just
the two of us and some crickets. Honesty. The kind that turns your stomach.

One night, though, I was so restless I followed him out of the bedroom. He wheeled
out onto the back porch to smoke. When I got to the door and looked out, I could see
the back of his head, the smoke curling into the darkness.

You were with me in my mind at that very moment, as if you were standing right next
to me.

“It’s now or never, Glory...”
you said.

So out I went.

“Got one of those for me?” I asked.

He didn’t turn around right away. I walked around to face him and sat right up on
the weathered wooden table we keep out there. That way, my head was a bit higher than
his. I needed some kind of power in the situation or I’d never do what had to be done.

He shook a cigarette out of his pack and lit one for me.

“When did you start, Ladygirl? Not too ladylike...”

I took the cigarette and lingered over my first drag. “Not very ladylike to sit on
a table in your nightgown, either,” I said.

“Maybe we lost all the
real
ladies to the war,” he said.

“Maybe so,” I said, but then I got quiet because I was losing my nerve. Thank God
he knows me. Thank the good Lord.

“You got something to tell me, Ladygirl?”

“Yes,” I said.

“I knew it,” he said, slapping his knee and laughing. “I could feel it from the day
I got off the train. It’s been written all over your face. Spit it out, quick. Who
is this new Gloria I’m married to? The old Gloria Whitehall would have told me anything.”

“It’s not that easy, Robert. It’s about the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

“It’s serious?” he asked.

And that was it. I wasn’t going to bruise his pride any more by making him play twenty
questions with me. I let my weakness with Levi fall out of my mouth. The flirting,
the kiss, the—you know. I won’t write it.

Nothing but crickets were heard for a long, long time. So long I helped myself to
another three or four cigarettes. He didn’t offer to light those.

“Do you love him, Glory?”

That’s what he asked when he broke his silence. Do I love him...do I love him.

I thought I’d say no. But when I opened my mouth, I said, “Yes, I do. But not how
I love you, Robert. Not like a wife loves her husband. I love him like a dear friend.
Like a long-ago love. Not up close. I love him from years and years away.”

“Will you leave me be for a bit?” he asked. His voice cracking and breaking my heart.

“You want me to go to bed?” I asked.

“Yes. Go to bed. I need to be alone, okay, Gloria?”

Gloria. Not Ladygirl. Maybe never Ladygirl again.

I went to bed but I didn’t sleep a wink. I heard him come in the house and then I
heard some things breaking. But I didn’t get up. After it got quiet I went to check
on him. He was in the living room, asleep in his wheelchair, holding a picture frame.
I eased it out of his hand, careful not to wake him. It was a picture of the three
of us—me and Levi and Robert, our arms around one another from when we were kids.
The three musketeers.

Our wedding picture was on the floor, glass broken. I took the photo out of the frame
and eased that one back into his hands. He would wake up holding us as a couple. And
I would put the picture of the three of us high up on a shelf, where it belonged.

The next morning I woke up to shouting.

“She’s my wife!” yelled Robert.

I ran to the porch and out the screen door in time to see him throw his coffee cup
at Levi. I froze.

“What part of that did you not understand, Levi? Were you still so angry at me for
winning her heart? Were you angry at me for being healthy enough to fight in the war?
Well, look at me, man! Who wins? WHO WINS NOW? You get the girl and you get to walk.
You get a nice house and two kids, too. Happy? Are you happy?” He was pulling himself
up by the porch columns, his legs slipping, but his arms holding strong.

Levi was white. Pale as if he was dead. I could tell he wanted to help Robert, but
knew he mustn’t get too close. Because in Robert’s face was a rage neither one of
us had ever seen. A rage that came from a dark, black place, Rita. The war was inside
of him...ready to come out.

“I didn’t get the girl, Robert. I might have got her attention for a second...but
I didn’t get her. She’s always been yours, we all know it,” said Levi, loud enough
to be heard over Robert’s roaring tenor. Just yelling without words.

That’s when Robert fell. He fell to the ground, down the two small steps from the
porch to the grass.

Levi couldn’t stand it, so he reached down to help him up. But then Robert’s arms
shot up and before I knew it he’d turned Levi over and had him pinned to the ground.
He was punching him, over and over again. Levi was struggling to get up...and that’s
when I unfroze.

“Stop it! STOP IT!” I cried. I threw myself on Robert’s back, and he shot up his elbow.
It clocked me right in the eye. I fell to the ground next to them, and I must have
screamed because the children were out and on the porch, and then on top of me in
a heap.

Robert turned to me, “Oh, Jesus, Glory! Are you okay?” He was at my side in a flash.
“What did I do...? What have I done? What the hell is happening to us?” he choked
out through his enraged broken heart. His eyes were absolutely frantic, Rita. I think
it wasn’t until that very moment that I understood the full ramifications of my transgressions.
He fell back and leaned his body against the lattice of the back porch. The children
went to him, trying to hush him. How they’ve fallen in love with their daddy so quickly.
It’s been a natural adjustment for them. He shines in their eyes.

Levi got up and backed about a yard away from the pack of us. There was crying and
soothing and cooing going on for the children...and soon, believe it or not, there
was laughing. All of us. Levi, too.

My eye hurt, but my heart was starting to heal.

When all the fuss quieted down, Levi was the first one to talk.

“I came over this morning to tell you I’m leaving. I’m going to California. I got
a cousin out there who bought some land. He fought in the war, fell in love with grapes
in Italy, I guess. Wants to start a vineyard.”

“What do you want me to say?” asked Robert, smoothing back his hair. His hair that
was growing in again, but there’s gray there, Rita. And he was squinting at Levi.
There were tears for that lost friendship, too. So many tears.

“Nothing,” said Levi. “There’s nothing to say. I’m sorry, Robert. I’m sorry I tried
to take something from you that we all know was always yours.”

The wind blew through the trees. I heard my heart beating in my ears. This was it.
He was leaving. He looked at me, into me and then past me like he’d seen a ghost.

“You leavin’, Levi?” asked Robbie. “I don’t want you to leave.” He ran to Levi, who
scooped him up. My thoughts and eyes went to Robert, who I know longed to do the same
thing, but couldn’t.

“Hey, little man. You got your dad back now. You don’t need me around anymore.”

He tried to set Robbie down, but that child’s legs went to jelly.

“How about this, how about I go out to California and make a pretty penny. Then you
and your mother, your father and baby Corrine can come out and visit me. Whaddaya
say?”

The invitation seemed to do the trick. Robbie squirmed away and took off chasing Corrine,
yelling, “She’s no baby! She’s a big old sore thumb!”

“I guess that’s that,” said Levi.

“Seems so,” said Robert.

Levi rubbed some dirt off his pants and walked away. Down the path that I’d seen him
run up a thousand times, and I knew I’d never see him there again.

“Damn, girl. Just go to him if you want to...” said Robert, noticing my stare. “I
can’t stop you, and right now I don’t know if I want to.”

I ran down the road after Levi. It was an easy thing to do because for the first time
I knew what had to be done. There were no more questions in my heart.

“Levi!” I shouted. “Wait up!”

He turned to face me. The trees along our road arched over him, framing his masculine
perfection. It’s a vision I’ll never forget. His nose was bleeding and he was wiping
it away with a handkerchief. One I’d made for him.

“You coming with me?” he asked, his eyes shining.

For a moment I was sorry I’d run after him. It seems that all I do is hurt that man.

“No, Levi. I just wanted to tell you a proper goodbye. And a proper ‘I’m sorry’—and
a proper ‘thank you.’”

“My ma always told me that true friends don’t have to say those things. Are we still
friends, Glory?”

“Always and forever,” I said.

He began to walk away again and then turned around.

“Just so you know,” he said, “I always knew it would be him. I knew it that night
long ago at the Sadie Hawkins dance, and I knew it before we even kissed each other
while he was gone. I knew this couldn’t happen to us. Seems to me there are people
in the world that you love...but that love isn’t meant for the real world. It just
can’t work out. It was like a fairy tale, wasn’t it, Glory?”

The tears were hot, the tears on my face. They stung and pulled at my swelling eye.
“No, Levi. It was a lie I wanted to tell myself. A lie I made myself believe and it
was so, so selfish of me.”

We just stood there, looking at each other.

“Do you mind if
I
think of it as a fairy tale?”

I didn’t know what to say, Rita, so I borrowed a line from when we were kids.

“I’m not the boss of you,” I said.

“Damn, girl,” said Levi, shaking his head and laughing. “I’d kiss you on the cheek,
Glory, if I didn’t think that would be dangerous. Better I leave now, okay? I’ll write.
I promise.”

The “promise” lingered in the air between our bodies.

Then, in one of those fine moments that make up the tragic quilt of life, he was gone.

I walked back up the road and sat next to my husband on the ground.

“Can you ever forgive me?” I asked as we watched the children wander around the morning
garden.

He didn’t answer. My breath started to come out all shallow.

“Did he ask you to go with him?” he asked, finally breaking the silence.

“Yes,” I said.

“And you came back to me?”